Mysore, an Indian Wedding & Srirangapatnam

Having worked a little more than we'd ideally like of late, we gladly took up an offer from one of my colleagues to attend his wedding in Mysore on Friday, also taking the opportunity to create a long weekend and experience some more of India outside of Bangalore.


Farming ye olde style - no problem when labour is cheap & abundant.


Whilst only about 140km away, it's a good 3 hour drive by road - at least. Having said that, it was great to get 'out of town' and experience a little more of India. So we headed off to the reception Thursday night and then the ceremony Friday morning.


Mysore, known for it's silk, incense and sandalwood amongst other things, was the city of choice for the Wodeyar maharajas, who pretty much ruled in various forms from about 1400 to 1947. Touring the palace below was the first opportunity we'd had to start to learn a little of the history, and it didn't disappoint. Great stories of empires, sub-empires, battles, wars and all the other good stuff that I won't bore you with here in these days of google and wikipedia.

Not a bad little house... if you're a maharaja of course

Making friends in the Palace grounds

Look closely..Peter Pan shoes & all....

Apparently there are literally hundreds of variations within Hindu weddings alone, but we were delighted to be able experience this one. I had asked around some friends and colleagues on what would be considered appropriate attire - "respectful but not over the top" I think I had suggested... and the result can be seen here.

The happy couples

Whilst I'm pleased to have made the effort we soon discovered that many other guests were in simple 'western' dress - anything from 'business casual' to jeans and a shirt. Having said that, it's not every day you get to buy a Sari and Shirvani and wear them with the best intent, so it kind of added to the fun and was, I'm think, received well. The wedding itself consisted of a great number of rituals and traditions taking place over a couple of hours - another work colleague gave us a bit of an insight into what was happening at some of the stages but I won't even attempt to recount in any detail.

Random shot from the streets of Mysore... how many school kids can you fit into one 'auto'?

Having looked around some of Mysore's great markets, we checked out Chamundi Hill and temple and then Brindavan Gardens, apparently a feature of many of Bollywoods best. Probably my favourite new spot of the weekend and one of the best little towns so far was Srirangapatnam - a town on an island in the river Cauvery with a load of history. Home to Hyder Ali and the great Tipu, it was pretty much the capital of Southern India for much of the 18th century, when Tipu in particular enjoyed a number of major victories over the British. The poms eventually managed to beat him, and he lays today within the town. Many of the old ramparts and gates of the old fort still stand - I love the fact that the majority of the town still stand within the walls of the old fort.